


The Lines Between

by burymeonpluto



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Gen, Self-Hatred, Sort Of, Station Of Awakening, Swords & Sorcery, a battle of stubbornness, post-kh3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25250281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeonpluto/pseuds/burymeonpluto
Summary: Vanitas bucks and thrashes like a wild animal. “What are you doing?!” Then the edge of Riku’s keyblade presses against his chest, and he instantly stops struggling.Magic rises around them like a calm, glittering breeze. Riku keeps him pinned there, seriousness written in every line on his face. “Setting you free.”
Relationships: Riku & Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 81





	The Lines Between

**Author's Note:**

> I took a lot of liberties with the whole manifestation of hearts and the way the Unversed actually work but shhh

  
  
“Get lost!”  
  
“Wait—Vanitas! Just listen to me!” Riku shouts over the sound of clashing blades, and Vanitas pauses his onslaught. It’s out of curiosity, if nothing else. He’s wondering what desperate words Riku will try to snare him with this time, like any of them ever actually _work_.  
  
Riku stands panting on the other side of the battlefield. Like always, Vanitas didn’t give him enough time to even speak his name. He jumped to attack as soon as Riku tracked him down along the plains of the Keyblade Graveyard, a dusty wasteland littered with flocks of small Unversed—the ones that Ventus calls “Floods.” He doesn’t care about Riku’s intentions, or the fact that the war is over, he only knows that Riku is an enemy and a stranger and _keeps showing up_ _to bother him_.  
  
Vanitas attacks relentlessly and without prejudice, and he hasn’t even broken a sweat. Is he really human, or has Riku been wasting his breath on a mirage? “What are you?” he asks half-jokingly.  
  
Vanitas shows a twisted grin and spreads his arms out wide. “I’m everything _you_ could’ve been.”  
  
What, a human weapon completely wrecked by Darkness? A vessel of power to be used up and inevitably discarded? Riku laughs through his nose. Maybe so.  
  
He’s sure that line was meant to get a rise out of him, to get under his skin and make him go away, but it only makes him want to drag Vanitas back with him all the more. To knock some sense into him. There’s no reason for all of this. There’s no battle to fight anymore. Vanitas has been wandering around like a phantom, wreaking havoc on random worlds… for what? Attention? Simply because he _can_? Riku has no idea; but he’s heard the stories of Vanitas’s origins, and the suspected path that lead him to this point. Ven doesn’t want Vanitas to be destroyed, and honestly, Riku agrees. The battle is over, but Vanitas is still fighting. For what, no one knows.

Riku pauses as he’s struck with a better question: Does Vanitas know anything other than fighting? He can’t ever seem to hold still, and he drops into his fighting stance the moment Riku shows up. His blade is raised high above his shoulder even now. It’s kind of familiar. Maybe they’re more alike than Riku first realized.

Riku lowers his weapon, as if this is just another friendly spar and not a potentially gruesome fight between separately-aligned keyblade wielders. “Your stance is off. You’re leaving your left wide open.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you,” he sneers. “Have you seen yourself?”

“It’s a feint. Leave an obvious opening and the first attack is simple to read. That’s the difference.” Vanitas doesn’t answer. He only comes at Riku again with a mighty swing that slams into his blade and leaves a ringing in his ears. “What’s the point of all this? What do you want?”

His haughty smirk darkens to a grimace. “What everyone wants. Everyone forged from ripped connections and the hollow spaces in-between… those of us who are born in halves,” he scrunches his nose, “and especially those that ended up bound to that clueless friend of yours…” The line work of his face is a carbon copy of that friend. Riku swallows back his unease. “It doesn’t concern you.”  
  
“That doesn’t answer my question.”  
  
“You think you’re entitled to an answer?”  
  
“Maybe I could figure it out myself, if anything you’re doing made any sense.”  
  
“I wouldn’t expect _you_ to understand,” Vanitas spits.  
  
“I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand.”  
  
“I understand just fine,” he seethes. “My heart is nothing but Darkness. It’s the only reason I exist as I am now. I’m made from it. I can’t escape it.”

“Who says you have to?” Riku counters.

“What?”

“My own heart was once overcome with Darkness. I know you can sense it—the residue of what I’ve done.” His gaze turns sharp. “But I climbed out… to walk the paths between. I may not deserve to bask in the Light, but I’m sick of wallowing in the Dark. There’s always a choice.”

He shakes his head. “We are not the same. I have no such choices. I am the Darkness lurking within another’s heart. More removed from the Light than you ever were.”  
  
“I disagree.” Those yellow eyes narrow dangerously at him. “Because if I’ve learned anything, it’s to never trust in absolutes. Didn’t you know? The brightest light casts the darkest shadow, and the strongest light is born within the deepest darkness. Beneath all the sorrow, hate, and fear, there is always a spark.”

“That’s impossible,” he laughs. “You’re an unequivocal idiot. What could possibly lie beneath everything that I am?”

Riku meets that smirk with one of his own. “Hope.”

Vanitas visibly bristles, his grin dropping like a stone. A thoughtful tongue slowly rakes over dry lips. It takes several seconds for his voice to return: “You are a fool.”

“It’s possible. Even for someone like you. But you have to live for yourself first. You have to be more than a weapon.”

His face twitches. “You—why…?” A growl rumbles in his throat. “That’s just like what _he_ said.” Disgust melts into those golden eyes, scorching everything before Riku can question it. “It’s all the same! It’s meaningless. Empty. Don’t give me that. I never asked for any of it!” His breath comes out in heavy puffs. A fist curls tightly around the hilt of his blade. “You know nothing. You _are_ nothing! I’ll make sure of it. You’ll see. I’m the only one walking out of here alive!” Then he lunges at Riku with everything he’s got. His blade comes down fast and coated in Darkness.  
  
Riku parries his attack and it reverberates through his arm from the sheer force Vanitas is putting behind it. Riku grits his teeth and goes for Vanitas’s exposed side, hitting him in the ribs with the flat of the blade. Vanitas stumbles back and swears beneath his breath, but his darksuit takes the brunt of the blow so he’s already stepping in for another swing. It catches Riku in the shoulder. He pulls a breath through his teeth but doesn’t back down.  
  
Vanitas doesn’t let up either. He comes after Riku with attack after attack, kicking up dust as he darts across the barren field. Dark lightning. A crawling dark fireball. Riku blocks and dodges the best he can. Luckily his jacket can take the edge off any of Vanitas’s elemental magic. Riku counters with some spells of his own, and he watches Vanitas wince as they connect.  
  
Riku goes on the defensive to try and catch his breath. His arms are aching. Vanitas is still in a frenzy, wearing himself down to the bones. They can’t keep going like this, fighting over and over. His words are reaching Vanitas without touching his heart. If Riku wants to get through to him, he might have to go directly to the source. He’s considered it before, but it may be the only way. Physical force certainly isn’t working. To tap into Vanitas’s heart, all he has to do is knock him off his feet.  
  
Riku drops into his stance and sends an array of lightning into the dirt at Vanitas’s feet. Debris and dust blast into the air in a shroud. He goes for a low body blow and uses his shoulder to ram into Vanitas’s chest. Vanitas loses his footing and they both hit the ground, rolling over one another in a fight for supremacy that Vanitas doesn’t have the body mass to win. He tries to twist out of Riku’s hold to no avail, and only ends up pinned.  
  
Vanitas bucks and thrashes beneath him like a wild animal. “What are you doing?!” Then the edge of Riku’s keyblade presses against his chest, and he instantly stops struggling.  
  
Magic rises around them like a calm, glittering breeze. Riku keeps him pinned there, seriousness written in every line on his face. “Setting you free.”  
  
Vanitas makes a noise like a laugh. Riku notes the distrust and unease in his voice, but with the tip of the blade poised above his half-eaten heart, he can’t even afford to tremble.  
  
The magic sweeps them away a moment later, pulling them both down through a deep dive.  
  
Riku’s heart sinks as the station comes into view. It’s barely illuminated in this darkness, dim red light shining through the stained glass of Vanitas’s sleeping face. His dark bodysuit. His garish and miss-matched keyblade. The crumbling edges have cracked and splintered and fallen into the abyss. All of it is barely hanging on, and so close to falling completely apart. The border that’s supposed to hold Vanitas’s heart together has long-since crumbled away. Riku can’t tell what it used to represent, if anything at all. The backdrop is the scorched desert of the Keyblade Graveyard. The spheres that form a halo around Vanitas’s head, where his anchors should be, are all empty.  
  
The wrongness of it tightens around Riku’s throat. He touches down on this barren, broken platform of a heart, and Vanitas suddenly appears from the darkness to lunge at him. Their blades clash for an instant. Vanitas is deflected back.  
  
He’s panting as he readies himself again. He looks even more wild now, with his heart on full display. “What do you think you’re doing?”  
  
Riku knows he’s forcefully exposed him, but he ignores the guilt curling in his guts. “Something necessary,” he says, both to Vanitas and to himself.  
  
Vanitas barks out a laugh that shows his teeth. He might be considering sinking them into Riku’s throat. “How _kind_ of you! What a hero!” Then he throws his arms wide and bares his chest. “Barging into my heart like this… you Lights are all so self-righteous.”  
  
“I know what I’m talking about—what my heart is telling me to do.”  
  
“Your _heart_!?” he bursts out laughing again. It’s cold and mirthless. “Spare me the lecture. You can’t argue matters of the heart with a creature who doesn’t have a functioning one.”  
  
Riku bites his lip. This station is the manifestation of Vanitas’s heart, and the black solder that holds the colorful glass together is ugly and uneven. It’s looks like something once broken and hastily put back together with careless hands. Missing pieces are supplemented with nothing but more dark adhesive.   
  
“What do you expect to do? Hold me and tell me everything’s gonna be okay? What a laugh.” He readjusts his grip on his blade, but he doesn’t attack. “Your words are useless. They won’t change anything. Give up before I make you.”  
  
“Vanitas—”  
  
“Get _out_ before I _make you_!” He springs forward again with another wild swing that Riku barely blocks.  
  
Riku is knocked back several steps, closer to the crumbling edge. Vanitas keeps coming with a string of dark lightning, and Riku is forced to dodge. He feels the electricity prick at his skin, too close of a call, and trades his quick-step for a dark roll. Riku lets himself melt into the shadows with a flash of magic, and slips right out of Vanitas’s range. But once he emerges, Vanitas is staring at him with scrutinizing eyes. Riku keeps his defensive stance.  
  
“That’s some move you got there,” Vanitas jeers. “You just learn that? How cute.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Vanitas’s body turns to Darkness, and he sinks into the ground. He becomes his own shadow, as Riku just did, and zips over before Riku can flinch. He pops back out of the shadows in a twirl of fire and Darkness that sizzles against Riku’s arms, but doesn’t break his guard. Vanitas keeps up that smarmy grin. “There’s no sympathy in Darkness. Remember that we’re not the same.”  
  
Riku levels his stare. He doesn’t retreat. “Don’t be so sure about that. Darkness is its strongest once you realize you don’t have to fear it. If you accept it, and embrace it… it’s all in how you use it.”  
  
“Then why are you still pathetically clinging to your little spark of hope? There’s power in Darkness. What do you need from the Light?”  
  
“They cultivate each other.”  
  
“They _destroy_ each other.”  
  
“Do you really believe that?” Riku snorts. “That’s just a lie Xehanort told you, isn’t it?” Vanitas glares, but he doesn’t say anything. “Darkness isn’t inherently bad. I’d know that better than anyone. And I guess that means Light isn’t inherently good, either. You don’t have to change everything about yourself to find another path. That lie doesn’t have to define you.”  
  
“I thought I told you to spare me the lecture,” Vanitas mutters. Darkness starts to radiate from him in waves and wisps.  
  
Riku grasps those tendrils in his free hand. They feel familiar. He uses his own control to stifle them, and coddle them back against Vanitas’s suit.  
  
Vanitas immediately jumps back like he’s been burned. “What are you doing!?”  
  
“Proving that I know what I’m talking about.”   
  
He only grinds his teeth. “Why are you so hopeless? I’m nothing but Darkness. Your precious Light gave up on me a long time ago. So let it go.”  
  
“What do you mean by that? The Light gave up on you? Do you mean Ventus?” He can barely get the name out of his mouth before Vanitas’s keyblade comes careening towards his head.  
  
“ _Don’t._ ”  
  
Not even Ven… Riku thought it was odd that Ven didn’t appear on Vanitas’s heart station at all, when that may be the only true connection Vanitas has to another person. Any connection he’s ever had, besides whatever hell Xehanort put him through, or the weird proxy he has to Sora. But there’s nothing. Vanitas’s heart is broken and bare. Riku still doesn’t understand why.  
  
Even Riku, through his own deep dive, has seen the face of his personal villain upon his heart station. A connection he can’t sever. Despite everything, Ansem shaped who he is. Riku took everything that happened and became all the stronger for it. He wouldn’t call it fondness, but Ansem belongs on his heart. A medallion of the mistakes he’s learned from.  
  
So then, what kind of relationship did Vanitas have with Xehanort? Riku assumed it was hellish, but that’s framed by his own experience.  
  
Even still, that doesn’t explain Ven’s absence. Riku furrows his brow. He doesn’t understand. “There’s nothing holding you in place like this.”  
  
Vanitas doesn’t answer. He flashes over towards Riku—faster than lightning. He sends a tremendous blow to Riku’s stomach and knocks the air right out of him. Riku gasps as he’s sent flying. He lowers his stance, searching for purchase. He keeps his blade up and Vanitas clangs his own weapon against it.  
  
“Not even Xehanort,” Riku grunts. He still can’t breathe. It’s like his chest is caving in.  
  
Vanitas uses his Darkness to catapult himself into the air, bringing his keyblade down in a heavy plunging attack. Riku takes a clumsy sidestep and narrowly misses losing an arm.  
  
It’s hard to channel his magic properly when he can’t breathe, so the dark firaga he launches at Vanitas is average at best. But it’s enough to push Vanitas back in a burst of sparks and smoke. Riku stands hunched with his blade raised, panting to catch his breath somehow.  
  
“We’re not the same,” Vanitas repeats through clenched teeth.  
  
That much is obvious. At the very least, Riku had a Light calling him back home. He never had to worry about which direction he should go. But Vanitas… Riku watches him, wild and unhinged, and clawing at anything that gets too close. His tense shoulders; and that fidgeting grip on his blade that he keeps readjusting. The emptiness around them is suddenly much more noticeable. Riku can almost hear what’s left of Vanitas’s heart hammering away somewhere in his chest.  
  
“We can do better than this,” Riku says, and dismisses his blade. They don’t need to fight. That’s not what this is about.  
  
Vanitas glowers. “You’re naive.”  
  
“You’re stubborn.”  
  
“I don’t want to hear that from someone like you. You’re the one who doesn’t know when to give up. Now stop holding back.”  
  
That sounds so final. Not angry, but tired. Riku may be literally standing upon his heart, but there’s still so much left to understand. Vanitas stays here, cowering in his own destruction, away from the Light. Shame, or fear… Riku can’t put his finger on it. They’re similar enough for Riku to know Vanitas is suffering, but they’re too different for him to know _how_ to help.  
  
Maybe Vanitas was right. Maybe Riku’s an idiot, after all. He thought it would be easy.  
  
But his own heart is aching. He _needs_ to help. It’s clear that Vanitas is in pain; perhaps a pain greater than Riku can even imagine, but that’s no excuse to give up. He can’t give up. Then Vanitas would truly have no one.  
  
No, it’s not about anything else anymore. Riku has to see this through because it’s the _right_ thing to do. If Riku deserved chance after chance, then surely Vanitas does too.  
  
Vanitas doesn’t seem to like Riku’s expression, or his silence. He backs up defensively. “Stop it.”  
  
Riku only narrows his eyes. He must’ve struck something important for Vanitas to react so strongly. Maybe Riku has cut too close to everything Vanitas keeps locked behind his veneer of villainy. But he hasn’t even said anything.  
  
Vanitas’s face twists into a nasty snarl. “Don’t. Don’t you dare look at me like that. I don’t want to see sympathy in your eyes. I want—” His voice catches. What can he not say? “The only sympathy I want from you is your hands closing around my throat. Or that blade tearing my chest open. I don’t want pity. I want to see your hate!” He’s trembling, but Riku can’t tell if it’s with rage or fear. “ _Hate me_ _!_ ” Black sludge pours from the clumsy solder that holds his heart together. It gathers and congeals until it’s a gigantic, gelatinous monstrosity with burning red eyes and a gaping mouth filled with teeth.  
  
Riku returns his blade to his hand. He’s seen creatures like this before. The Unversed. But how could they possibly manifest here? Is each Unversed just a piece of Vanitas’s heart splintering off? Is he constantly unraveling?  
  
Vanitas whips around to face the creature, but it’s not with confidence. His moves are too frantic, in spite of his grin. There’s no way Riku wouldn’t notice.  
  
A polyp forms that becomes an inky black arm, and the Unversed brings its monstrous fist down onto Vanitas. Riku’s heart stops.  
  
“What the—? Vanitas!” He barely catches sight of a shadow flopping to the other end of the platform with all the grace of a ragdoll. Vanitas writhes and tries to stand, but Riku doesn’t have time to see if he succeeds. The Unversed is coming for him and he has to move.  
  
Riku reminds himself that this realm isn’t entirely physical. This Unversed looks menacing but it’s not very strong. He takes the thing’s gluey arm off with only two swings of his keyblade. It’s not giving Riku its full attention, either. Every time Vanitas gets to his feet, or even to his knees, the monster knocks him back down. Riku dances around the Unversed and tries to make quick work of it. He can’t tell if Vanitas is really hurt with this thing flailing everywhere. But it’s also stubborn, and absorbs all of Riku’s magic, so he’s forced to slash and hack away at it until his arms ache. What it lacks in strength it makes up for in persistence.   
  
Finally, the monster dissipates, and there’s nothing but Riku and Vanitas’s labored breathing between the quiet darkness surrounding the heart station. No pulse. No ethereal echo. Only broken connections and jagged edges. The silence of the void.  
  
Riku dismisses his keyblade. Vanitas lays unmoving on the other side of the station, but he’s still breathing. His shaking shoulders are proof of that. “Vanitas… do you hate me?” There’s no reaction. “You were talking about hate, and… well… You summoned that huge Unversed. That was your hate, right?” Still nothing. Vanitas stays there, vaguely trembling. Trying to curl in over himself but lacking the energy to do it. Riku steps closer. “But the thing is, it didn’t attack me. It went straight for you.” Another step. “You… hate yourself.” Vanitas stops shaking as his energy finally sputters out. “Is that why you’re so bent on destroying yourself? Why you want me to destroy you?”  
  
Vanitas coughs, and blood dots the stained glass floor. “What’s the point anymore?” he murmurs, and spits out a glob of red. “Just… leave me to disappear.”  
  
“I’m not going to do that.” There’s no way he could. Not after seeing Vanitas this way—not after seeing into his heart. He’s so hurt, and pitiable; and so deserving of love. The empty chambers of his heart station speak of nothing but loss. “It doesn’t matter to me what you are. _Who_ you are. I’m not going to destroy you. I’m going to save you.” He snaps open the vial of a potion, and presses the curative into Vanitas’s back. Warm green light works its way through the wounds, and Vanitas gasps at the gentle touch. Riku wonders if Vanitas has ever known gentleness before. It’s doubtful. Perhaps every touch was an attack, and filled with pain. Maybe… he doesn’t know that contact doesn’t have to hurt. It can be soft, and healing.  
  
Vanitas wasn’t lying. He was never given a choice. He had no Light calling him back home, only one that shunned and refused him. He was coddled by Darkness that told him that’s all he’d ever be. But Vanitas deserves the light of hope, so Riku will offer up his. Vanitas’s fear and desperation and hopelessness smell all too familiar. Riku can’t ignore it. He can’t leave him alone.  
  
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Riku murmurs. “You can make a choice. Choose your path, and walk it. Be it dawn or dusk, that’s your decision, but you can’t just give up. You deserve a chance to choose.”  
  
Vanitas tries to sit up and pulls a painful breath through his teeth. He decides to roll onto his back instead, making it easier for him to glare up at Riku with whatever strength he has left. His lips are still coated in blood from wounds Riku can’t see. “Giving Darkness a chance… What kind of Light are you?”  
  
“Maybe I’m everything you could’ve been,” Riku echoes.  
  
Vanitas scoffs and chokes on the blood in his mouth. “Shut up. You’re the worst of them all.”  
  
“Uh-huh, sure.” He fishes another potion from his pockets. Vanitas curls his lip like he wants to refuse it. And he calls Riku the stubborn one. Riku cups the magic in his hands and gently lays it against Vanitas’s ribs.  
  
He groans as the potion does its work. “You’re idiotic and naive… with those bright, hopeful eyes of yours… You don’t know when to give up.”  
  
“You’re right. I don’t. I won’t give up on you.”  
  
“I’ll make you wish you did,” he mutters with a little more bite.  
  
“Oh, yeah?” Riku smirks.  
  
“I’ll make your life hell for it. You’ll be begging to get rid of me.”  
  
“Is that a promise?”  
  
“Yeah. It’s a threat.” Vanitas tries again to sit up. It looks like the pain has dampened, but he’s still having trouble. Riku’s arm instinctively swoops beneath his shoulders to help hold him up. “I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”  
  
“I look forward to it.”  
  
“Shut up. Just shut up. I can’t stand you.”  
  
“Seems to me you can’t _stand_ at all,” Riku sneers.  
  
Vanitas throws out his arm and it catches Riku across the face. He’s trying to struggle, but all he can do is grab fistfuls of Riku’s jacket and mutter half-baked threats under his breath.  
  
Riku chuckles softly. His hands find Vanitas’s fists and coax them to unfurl.  
  
“Do you enjoy this?” he spits. “You enjoy seeing me so weak?”  
  
“You’re not weak. You’re just tired.”  
  
Vanitas laughs through his nose.  
  
“How long have you been fighting?” He hasn’t stopped fighting Riku this entire time, despite everything. It’s a matter of trust, or habit, or maybe just instinct.  
  
“Don’t talk like you know me,” Vanitas grumbles. “We are not the same.”  
  
“We’re more alike than you think. You don’t have to pretend for me.”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“Vanitas…”  
  
He slumps against Riku’s chest. His skin is burning with fever. “Just shut up…” The bite in his voice is gone. Riku feels a small tremor from the glass beneath them, and the dirty film of Darkness starts to burn away. The colors become more vibrant. The black solder is neatly tucked between the shards, no longer leaking and encroaching upon the rest of his heart. The edges are still jagged and broken, but it’s a start. “Don’t look at me like that,” Vanitas mutters.  
  
“Are you kidding?” he snorts. “I can’t look away.”  
  
He tries to push Riku away with weak hands. “Get lost.” He’s given up holding on to this ephemeral form. This image of Vanitas begins to dissolve away. Back to his heart. Back to himself. He could wake on his own and leave Riku down here, alone on the station of his heart. He doesn’t care anymore. If Riku was going to destroy him, he would’ve done it already.  
  
But Riku has already felt the shift. He doesn’t need to stay here any longer, either. The broken edges of Vanitas’s heart will heal over time. Riku will make sure of it. What’s lost to the Dark can always return, as long as there’s something holding it all together.  
  
Riku follows the thread back to his own body, and wakes on the barren ground of the Keyblade Graveyard. Vanitas lays next to him in the dwindling sunlight, eyes open and staring into the sky as the stars flicker to life. His face is pained and resigned.  
  
“What did you do?” Vanitas mumbles as if it’s burdensome to speak.  
  
Riku shrugs. “Nothing, really.”  
  
“You’re meddlesome.”  
  
“Maybe I am,” he laughs as he pulls himself upright. “I’ve been called worse things.”  
  
“Didn’t I tell you to get lost?” Vanitas groans.  
  
“Yeah… Not gonna happen.”  
  
He sighs and closes his eyes to the sky. He doesn’t move, like he could fall into a fitful sleep.  
  
Here, on the cold ground? Riku frowns in the silence. “You should come back with me.” He half-expects Vanitas to scoff and call him an idiot, but his face only twists up. He’s not arguing against it. “You can’t stay here.”  
  
There’s the scoff.  
  
“How will you make me regret saving you if you hide away here forever?”  
  
“Shut up,” Vanitas forces the words out. “I’ll make you regret even more than that. You’ll regret ever laying eyes on me.”   
  
Riku grins. At last, a plan for the future. “I’ll take that bet.”  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This has sat half-finished in my docs for far too long.
> 
> The ethics of Riku forcing himself into Vanitas’s heart are questionable, but ya know what Riku’s never claimed to be a Good Guy. I love these two headstrong fools. You can read this in a shippy way if you want. I encourage it.
> 
> [-pluto](https://twitter.com/VaniVeniVici)


End file.
